2217: Is Holding a Grudge a Rational Thing To Do? by Keith Wilson of Keith Wilson Counseling on Anger & Emotional Healing

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[00:00:42] This is Optimal Relationships Daily, episode 2217. Is holding a grudge a rational thing to do? By Keith Wilson of KeithWilsonCounseling.com Hello everybody. Happy Sunday and thanks a lot for making this weekend ORD episode possible.

[00:00:59] I'm Greg Audino, your host and narrator, here today with a piece from one of my very favorite writers, who we haven't shared from in a while, Keith Wilson. Keith is a therapist whose articles focus on both substance abuse and relationship building most often.

[00:01:14] And today he's got some insight on grudges and just how much sense they really make. So let's hear his thoughts as we optimize your life. Is holding a grudge a rational thing to do? By Keith Wilson of KeithWilsonCounseling.com

[00:01:33] Suppose you're angry on Tuesday because someone stole from you on Monday. On Wednesday, that person returned what he stole, compensated you for the inconvenience, apologized, and credibly promised never to do it again. If you're still angry on Thursday, you are said to be holding a grudge.

[00:01:53] Plenty of people say grudges should be abolished. They're irrational, lead to unbalanced retribution, and hurt the holder of the grudge. I've said so myself in my book, The Road to Reconciliation, A Comprehensive Guide to Peace When Relationships Go Bad.

[00:02:10] It's one of the many ways that victims get wrecked on the road to reconciliation and fail to find peace. But an article in the Boston Review by Agnes Collard caused me to reconsider. She says holding a grudge is a perfectly rational thing to do. Could this be true?

[00:02:27] Grudges begin in anger and retain many of the characteristics of that hot emotion. Feeling angry is a useful indication that you are the victim of an injustice. Someone without a legitimate claim took what was yours. It was not right, and they ought to be punished.

[00:02:45] As far as that goes, anger is a valuable signal and motivation to get justice. But anger often leads to problems such as violence, vindictive retribution, and elevated cortisol levels of the angry person.

[00:03:00] When you hold a grudge, you persist in your anger, and you increase the likelihood that the problems of anger will emerge. It might be nice to cut out the problems relating from anger while keeping the righteous parts.

[00:03:12] Keep your anger long enough to get the message that someone is harming you, but set it aside before anyone else gets hurt. Is that even possible? I'm not asking whether you can restrain yourself from blowing your top when someone hurts you. Of course you can.

[00:03:28] I'm asking if, when you remove violence, retribution, cortisol, and grudges, are you depriving anger of its vigor? By the way, if you don't believe you can restrain yourself when you're hurt, I ask you to submit the incident to the biker test. It goes like this.

[00:03:46] Imagine you believe that you were unable to restrain yourself from hitting your wife. She provoked you and you snapped. To submit the incident to the biker test, ask yourself if you would have hit the provocative person if it was a big, scary biker and not your wife.

[00:04:01] I bet you wouldn't, unless you were a big, scary biker yourself. Let's return to the original example. Someone stole from you on Monday and made it right on Wednesday. Now it's Thursday. Why are you still bearing a grudge?

[00:04:15] First, we need to set aside the fact that very few offenders ever really make it right, as the person in our example did. They claimed to apologize while making excuses, perform inadequate restitution, and developed no plan to ever do it again.

[00:04:30] If you are the recipient of a half-hearted reparation, then it's no wonder you're holding onto a grudge. The harm was inadequately addressed, and your grudge is a reminder of promises never delivered and wrongs never righted. But what if that's not the case?

[00:04:47] Imagine the person who robbed you did an excellent job apologizing and making reparations. Are you justified in holding a grudge the next day? I believe you are. In addition to losing your stuff, you suffered a betrayal of trust. Trust is such an essential part of social life.

[00:05:04] We take 90% of it for granted. You may lock your doors when you leave, but you still trust that no one will break in and steal from you. You wouldn't be angry if you didn't.

[00:05:14] Part of the harm done when they swiped off your stuff was that you lost your stuff. But the greater harm is that you can no longer trust. Broken trust is not something you can repair in one day.

[00:05:25] They can bring back on Wednesday the stuff that they stole on Monday. They can compensate you for your inconvenience, and they can affirm that what they did was wrong. They can claim to be trustworthy now.

[00:05:37] But until they actually deliver some trustworthiness, you've got to hold them to it. Trustworthiness cannot be delivered all at once. It must come in over time through sustained reliability. As long as they're in your debt, you have the right to hold a grudge.

[00:05:53] Let's push the question a little further. It's one year later. The person who stole your stuff has not stolen any more stuff. He gives every indication of being reformed. He has proved himself to be trustworthy, but you are still holding a grudge. Are you right to do so?

[00:06:11] The reasons to hold a grudge are the same as the reasons to get angry in the first place. Apologies, restitution, and subsequent trustworthiness do nothing to change the fact that he stole. Nor the fact that he ought not to have stolen.

[00:06:25] There are some things that can never be made right. What he did – steal – will always be different from what he should have done – not steal – no matter what he does next. Once you have a reason to be angry, you have a reason to be angry forever.

[00:06:42] I must conclude that grudges are perfectly logical, justified, and intelligible. You are not crazy to hold one. What may be more crazy would be to set the grudge aside. Why would anyone forgive?

[00:06:54] One reason is, with all the harms that you could suffer over the course of a lifetime, it's impossible to carry so many grudges. You must pick and choose, and it can be a practical matter of which grudge to hold on to longer.

[00:07:07] It all comes down to the biker test. When the cost of keeping a grudge is greater than the cost of letting it go, then forgiveness makes sense.

[00:07:17] In the same vein, sometimes the person you are holding a grudge against is someone you must ally with towards an important goal. Your spouse, for instance, who might have hurt you.

[00:07:28] You might have a good reason to hold a grudge against her, but she's the mother of your children, a contributor towards your mortgage, and your partner in bed at night. If you lay aside your grudge, you'd enjoy all that better.

[00:07:41] When the benefits of letting a grudge go are greater, you have an even better argument for forgiveness. You see, justice is an important value, but it's not the only thing to value in life.

[00:07:52] You could also value your kids, your home, having a partner, and not having to sleep with your enemy. There's another value that also often counters that of justice. It's called mercy. Justice is when people get what they deserve. Mercy is when they don't.

[00:08:09] Mercy is what you have when you have every reason to keep a grudge, but don't. You might have mercy, as I said, because you are seeking greater goods than those that can be achieved by justice.

[00:08:20] You might also have mercy when you realize that you and the person who offended you are not really that different. Has he stolen from you? You've stolen things too. He was at fault, but have you been faultless since Monday when he ripped you off?

[00:08:35] Victims of injustice are never as innocent as they would like to claim. Either they are morally compromised by the vengeful character of their anger, or they are morally compromised by acquiescence.

[00:08:47] I must conclude that holding a grudge is a perfectly rational thing to do, but so is showing mercy. It's your choice. But when you're making your choice, be sure to pay attention to all the factors involved. Don't only listen to your anger because it yells the loudest.

[00:09:04] Pay attention to mercy too. It speaks softly, but has something important to say. You just listened to the post titled, Is Holding a Grudge a Rational Thing to Do? By Keith Wilson of KeithWilsonCounseling.com And be sure to stay tuned for my comments in just a moment.

[00:09:26] And thank you so much to Keith for this post today. One that intersected a lot of logic and a lot of feeling. I really enjoyed what he had to say, and I hope he did as well.

[00:09:37] However, I do believe that many listeners today might find themselves having a hard time actually implementing these thought processes when considering their own grudges. And I wouldn't blame you. It can be a strange thing to label a raw emotion as rational or irrational,

[00:09:56] and of course it's the raw emotion of anger that's causing these grudges, as Keith discussed. It's not always easy, and it won't always make sense. But mind you, if we are so tied to our feelings,

[00:10:08] to the point that breaking them down like this and considering all these factors seems foreign, that's likely an indication that your feelings have more power over you than you'd like them to. Whether or not we choose to change our responses,

[00:10:23] it is still a sign of good emotional health if we are at least able to consider our feelings at deeper levels, and be open to seeing them differently. So think about that everyone.

[00:10:33] It's time to get out of here for now though, so have a terrific rest of your weekend. Thank you so much for joining, and be sure to come back tomorrow for a brand new week of ORD, where your optimal life awaits.